Buckets of water and waves of space: Why spacetime is probably a substance

Philosophy of Science 60 (2):183-203 (1993)
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Abstract

This paper sketches a taxonomy of forms of substantivalism and relationism concerning space and time, and of the traditional arguments for these positions. Several natural sorts of relationism are able to account for Newton's bucket experiment. Conversely, appropriately constructed substantivalism can survive Leibniz's critique, a fact which has been obscured by the conflation of two of Leibniz's arguments. The form of relationism appropriate to the Special Theory of Relativity is also able to evade the problems raised by Field. I survey the effect of the General Theory of Relativity and of plenism on these considerations

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Tim Maudlin
New York University

Citations of this work

Against Parthood.Theodore Sider - 2013 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 8:237–293.
Spacetime the one substance.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 145 (1):131 - 148.
"Bare particulars".Theodore Sider - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):387–397.
Individuals: an essay in revisionary metaphysics.Shamik Dasgupta - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 145 (1):35-67.

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References found in this work

What price spacetime substantivalism? The hole story.John Earman & John Norton - 1987 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (4):515-525.
Substances and space-time: What Aristotle would have said to Einstein.Tim Maudlin - 1990 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 21 (4):531-561.
The Shape of Space.Graham Nerlich - 1982 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 172 (1):117-126.
Mr. Leibniz' third paper.Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - 1956 - In H. G. Alexander (ed.), The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence. Manchester University Press.

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